6,000 people told they may have vCJD

• Haemophiliacs warned they may have variant CJD from infected blood

• Officials insist risk is small compared to those who ate beef during 1980s

• Legal action against government over contaminated blood planned

Key quote

"We want a public inquiry, but that’s the one thing they won’t let us have. In any other case, in any other country, each one of these things - HIV, hepatitis C or CJD - would have warranted a public inquiry" - Andy Gunn, Haemophilia suffer

Story in full THOUSANDS of haemophiliacs and other patients were yesterday told they may have caught the human form of mad cow disease through infected blood plasma products.

About 6,000 people with bleeding disorders were warned not to donate blood, tissue or organs and to tell doctors and dentists if they undergo any treatment because of the risk they had contracted the incurable and fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Around 120 people in Scotland are being informed.

Government health officials insisted there was only a "small increased risk" of contracting vCJD compared to people who ate beef during the 1980s.

The letters from health officials were sent out after a risk assessment of blood-derived products was carried out following the first possible fatality as a result of contracting vCJD through a transfusion of blood, which was announced in December last year.

Haemophiliac Andy Gunn, 29, from Inverness, who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products, told The Scotsman he was distraught and "raging angry" when he received the letter, but had become used to continual health scares.

"Any normal person would be devastated by this but they’ve already done this to the haemophiliac community numerous times before," he said.

"This is just the same old thing - they’ve known about this for years. It’s a murderous cover-up.

Haemophilia Action UK campaign co-ordinator Carol Longstaff, whose husband Peter is a haemophiliac, said he had been exposed to vCJD contaminated blood products 12 times, starting in November 1996.

She had written to health officials in March 1996 asking for him to be given synthetic blood products because of the risk of vCJD, but was told this would be too expensive.

"The government would say they identified it as being a risk in blood last December, but some scientists were saying in 1996 there was a danger," Mrs Longstaff said.

"We’re planning a class [legal] action on vCJD under the Product Liability Act. They have been aware for quite some time there were major concerns about whether vCJD was transmissible."

The warning applies only to those who received plasma products in the UK before 1999, thought to be about 4,000 people. Some of the products affected were exported to five other countries.

Nine UK donors who went on to develop vCJD have so far been identified. They contributed to around 200 batches of plasma.

The plasma was separated from blood donations and put into very large pools from thousands of other donations.

The haemophiliacs will be given the opportunity to find out whether the products they received were from contaminated pools.

Health officials stressed that, as more infected donors were identified, donations previously assumed clear would become a possible risk.

There have been nearly 150 vCJD deaths in the UK, including Donna-Marie McGivern, 17, of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, who became Scotland's youngest victim in 1999.

The Health Secretary, John Reid, yesterday insisted there had been no cover-up.

"Two principles have guided my department’s handling of the issue of vCJD - maximum caution and maximum openness," he said.

Professor Don Jeffries, from the CJD Incidents Panel, said they had come to the conclusion that they should take the precautionary measure in the interest of public safety.

"We don’t want to cause undue alarm. We don’t want to prejudice the blood supply.

"We don’t want people to shy away from having surgery when they need it," he said.